How to achieve more this year with this one simple step
We often start the new year with big ideas of how THIS is the year we’re going to be the person we want to be, and finally achieve our ambitions.
And when you have goals to achieve, a career to progress, and plans for the next 12 months, there’s usually little room to take a step back and consider how you’re already doing.
But what if we told you that you could achieve more this year by subtracting things from your life? By doing less, not more? Jenny Winslow, Senior Marketing Executive at Intouch Accounting, shows you how.
What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?
Have you made any ambitious plans for the year ahead? It could be taking the leap into freelancing or contracting and being your own boss, expanding your client base, or increasing your skill set and raising your day rate.
Whatever your path to success looks like, give yourself some time to think about what’s important to you in 2017.
Once you’ve done that, consider what you’re currently facing that might stop you from reaching your goals. It could be that you’re unhappy with permanent employment, the rate of your professional progression, your day rate, or even the skills you possess.
Whatever the barriers might be, getting rid of them will free up precious time to pursue your passions. So what are you waiting for? Get deleting…
Consider your work-life balance
Is work currently taking away more of your personal life then you’d like? Are you finding yourself wishing there was a way to achieve your professional goals, as well as your personal ones?
Consider your career and whether contracting or freelancing would offer you a better work-life balance. By being able to choose when you work, who for and for how long, you get to design your work life around your personal life, rather than the other way round.
Subtracting permanent from your life could just be the best move you ever make!
Use your time more wisely
Imagine the perfect afternoon or evening with your friends or family, doing what you love and having a fab time. Now imagine putting a price on how much that time means to you – £50, £1,000, £100,000, priceless?
We all have jobs that have to be done, but always seem to end up encroaching on our lives. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all been forced to cancel plans at some point because of work and impending deadlines!
For example if you’re self employed, sorting out your accounting needs yourself (such as your Self Assessment Tax Return) can take up monumental amounts of your time, cause undue stress, and make you miss out on the fun things in life.
By enlisting the services of expert suppliers, you’re able to free up your time, knowing that your needs are being taken care of by professionals who look after contractors and freelancers, day in, day out. Why waste your free time attempting to do it alone? Subtract trying to do everything yourself, and have more time for what you really enjoy doing.
(Read here how outsourcing tasks you don’t enjoy and aren’t naturally good at can also save you money.)
Create your ideal harmony
So what will you subtract from your life this year to help you achieve your goals? Or if subtracting is too tough, can you swap it for something that requires less of your time and effort, but gives a greater return?
By decluttering your to-do list you’ll be more productive, as doing less usually means you do whatever is left more efficiently. We all have those areas in life that take up more of our time, effort, and wellbeing than we’d like, so make this the year you finally delete them from your life.
Jenny Winslow works for Intouch Accounting, the expert contractor accountancy firm for Limited Company contractors.
